Paintball, a popular sport has developed over the years, which uses paintball markers (guns), which are guns utilizing compressed gas to fire projectiles. Some examples of paintball guns are those offered under the brand names 32 DEGREES™, EMPIRE™, DIABLO™, BT™ and INVERT MINI™, and others shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,708,685; 4,936,282; 5,497,758; and U.S. application Ser. Nos. 11/183,548; 11/180,506; 11/150,002; 11/064,693; 10/313,465; 10/090,810, the entire contents of which are all incorporated fully herein by reference. Players use the paintball guns to shoot projectiles known as paintballs (projectiles and paintballs are used interchangeably herein). These paintballs are spherical, frangible projectiles normally having gelatin or starch-based shells filled with paint (coloring or dye). The shells break when impacting a target, allowing the paint within to splatter on the target. The sport of paintball is often played like capture the flag. A player is eliminated from the game when the player is hit by a paintball fired from an opposing player's marker. When the paintball hits a target such as a player, a mark or “splat” of paint is left on the player.
Paintball loaders (otherwise known as hoppers or magazines, and also referred to herein as “projectile loaders” or “loaders”) generally sit atop the markers and feed projectiles into the marker. These projectile loaders (the terms “hopper,” “magazine,” and “loader” are used interchangeably herein) store projectiles, and have an outlet or exit tube (outfeed tube or neck). The outlet tube is connected to an inlet tube (or feed neck) of a paintball marker, which is in communication with the breech of the paintball marker. Thus, the loaders act to hold and feed paintball projectiles into the breech of a paintball marker, so that the projectiles can be fired from the marker.
Many loaders contain agitators or feed systems to mix, propel, or otherwise move projectiles in the loader. This mixing is performed by an impeller, projection, drive cone, agitator, paddle, arm, fin, carrier, or any other mechanism, such as those shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,213,110; 6,502,567; 5,947,100; 5,791,325; 5,954,042; 6,109,252; 6,889,680; and 6,792,933, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein. In a “gravity feed” or “agitating” loader, an agitator mixes projectiles so that no jams occur at the exit opening of the outlet tube. In a “force feed” or “active feed” paintball loader, the agitator (drive cone, carrier, paddle or any other force feed drive system) forces projectiles through the exit tube. Because it is desirable to eliminate as many opposing players as possible, paintball markers are capable of semi-automatic rapid fire. Accordingly, the paintball loaders act to hold a quantity of projectiles, and ensure proper feeding, and feed rate of the projectiles to the marker for firing.
Modern paintball loaders utilize projections, paddles, arms, carriers, drive cones, or other agitators to mix or advance paintballs. These agitators are operated by motors, which are usually electrical and powered by a power source such as a battery.
One critical problem with current paintball loaders is when such loaders and the agitators in such loaders encounter a jammed paintball (such as when a paintball is jammed such as at an exit opening or cannot otherwise move), paintball breakage can occur. In addition, the motors may be damages if they cannot operate or become jammed.
Thus, there is the need for a paintball loader that can continue to operate, even when a paintball jam occurs, and that will not break paint or damage the motor of a paintball agitator when encountering a jam or other disruption in operation.